Tuesday, July 28, 2009

First a question...
If you want information on Swine influenza (H1N1) do you go the library, your doctor, or to Internet?
I've just been reading about the use of health information on the Internet in the latest New Scientist. Much of it concerned wikis and especially Wikipedia, for example that 50% of doctors use Wikipedia for health info. At the moment there are speciality wikis, written by doctors etc, and Wikipedia, written by anyone, including doctors. Since the public are using Wikipedia as their source some in the medical establishment think that it is a good place for specialists to place their advice and knowledge. For the whole article go to http://bit.ly/Q0G76
Other medical sources on the web...Medpedia, WebMD, UK's NHS
This is yet another example of how Internet is becoming society's knowledge source and democratising knowledge.